Purdue President Mitch Daniels Says He Trusts IPFW Leadership (VIDEO)

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FORT WAYNE, Ind. (www.incnow.tv) -- The Purdue Board of Trustees is meeting at IPFW for the first time since both Mitch Daniels took on his role as Purdue’s president and Vicky Carwein came on board as IPFW’s chancellor.

This comes as IPFW is facing an almost $9 million dollar deficit. At the board’s meetings Thursday 21 Alive’s Stephanie Parkinson spoke with Daniels about the budget troubles. Daniels says his philosophy, as a leader, is to trust those who are charged with making the decisions. In this case Carwein and her staff are responsible with balancing IPFW's budget.

A few weeks ago the IPFW Faculty Senate questioned how Carwein and her staff were balancing the budget and requested the administration consider using reserve funds to balance the budget. But the administrators said they think it’s best to balance the budget without reserve funds.

Daniels says cuts are always difficult but he trusts in the leaders at IPFW. He also cites a change in demand from students as part of the problem.

“It’s never pleasant but the reality is enrollment here has been going down. And that’s not necessarily anybody’s fault. A lot of these students are at Ivy Tech now because we don’t offer associate degrees or remediation here anymore for instance so it’s just the new reality,” said Daniels.

21 Alive’s Stephanie Parkinson also asked Daniels about the discrimination lawsuit filed against Purdue University by IPFW’s former chancellor Michael Wartell this week. Daniels said it’s an unfortunate situation but said he can’t comment on the details of the lawsuit because he was not at Purdue during the time Wartell served as chancellor.

The Purdue Board of Trustees met Thursday at the Fort Wayne campus. They also have meetings set for Friday.

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